Pollution of the atmosphere in urban areas of the United States, once no more than a tolerable annoyance, in the short space of 15 years has become a disturbing threat with overtones of deadly menace. Smoke that used to darken and smirch cities like Pittsburgh has given place to the smog that periodically chokes Los Angeles and other American communities. Meanwhile, people of country and city alike, east and west, face a dread evil of uncertain proportions in the new phenomenon of radioactive fall-out.

Up to World War II, control of air pollution was mostly a question of smoke abatement. Since then the vast growth of industrial production, and in particular the expansion of the chemical industries, have made air contamination much more difficult to deal with and potentially, if not always actually, much more damaging to the health and property of the inhabitants of industrial communities. Now there is the new and general threat that the air may be poisoned by radioactivity, heavily if nuclear weapons are used in war, less heavily but possibly with disastrous long-range effects if nuclear test explosions become too numerous.

Prospective Increase In Federal Research Funds

Both the intensification and the newness of the problem of air contamination are evidenced by the fact that it was not until last year that the U. S. Public Health Service had funds for and initiated a specific air pollution program. The extent of the menace of radioactive fall-out is still in the realm of controversy. The lower house of Congress showed that it took a grave view of dangers from that source in case of war when it amended the Independent Offices Appropriation bill from the floor, Mar. 30, to authorize the Federal Civil Defense Administration to use a $30 million fund to buy fall-out detection devices for distribution among local civil defense agencies.